Blazing anger

Flames rage behind a protester in the Turkish capital Ankara as the country's biggest cities were rocked by days of some of the most violent riots there in decades.

Hundreds of police and protesters have been injured since May 31 in the unrest, which began with a demonstration to halt construction in a park in an Istanbul square and grew into mass protests against what opponents call Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's authoritarianism.

28 May 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

A Turkish riot policeman fires tear gas as people protest against trees being destroyed in a park on Istanbul's central Taksim Square as part of a government development project.

The demonstrations were started by a small group of environmental campaigners but mushroomed when police used force to eject them, and widened into a broad show of defiance against the government.

31 May 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Riot police use tear gas to disperse the crowd during an anti-government protest at Taksim Square on the day that serious unrest kicked off.

Protests have involved a broad spectrum in dozens of cities, from students to professionals, trade unionists, Kurdish activists and hardline secularists who see Erdogan seeking to overthrow the secularist state set up by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923 in the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.

31 May 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Some protesters accuse Erdogan of fostering a hidden Islamist agenda and object to tightening restrictions on alcohol sales and other measures seen as religiously motivated. Others complain of the costs from Erdogan's support of rebels in neighbouring Syria's civil war. Still others bear economic grievances, viewing the disputed development project in Taksim Square as emblematic of wild greed among those who have benefited from Turkey's boom.

Erdogan has dismissed the protests as the work of secularist enemies who never reconciled to the mandate of his Islamist AKP party, which has won three straight elections, overseen a period of economic growth and raised Turkey's profile in the region.

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3 Jun 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov

A protester sleeps on a chair in Taksim Square following an evening of serious unrest.

3 Jun 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov

Another protester sleeps in a damaged and graffitied vehicle.

3 Jun 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Following demonstrations, garbage bags are left strewn all over a street by protesters in order to form a barrier.

2 Jun 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Demonstrators rest in Taksim Square.

2 Jun 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Others shout slogans from the windows of a building during a protest against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. The banner in the centre reads ''Long live our Taksim resistance".

1 Jun 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Riot police use tear gas to disperse the crowd during a protest.

1 Jun 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Tear gas fills the air.

31 May 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

A demonstrator hurls a gas canister back at riot police.

2 Jun 2013. ANKARA, Turkey. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Another protester wears a gas mask fashioned out of a plastic water bottle.

31 May 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

A protester reacts as riot police use a water cannon and tear gas to disperse the crowd.

31 May 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

The spray from a water cannon showers down on a demonstrator.

1 Jun 2013. ANKARA, Turkey. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

A man is struck by a jet from a water cannon.

2 Jun 2013. ANKARA, Turkey. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

A demonstrator waves Turkey's national flag as he sits on a monument.

2 Jun 2013. ANKARA, Turkey. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Demonstrators carry away an injured man during the third day of unrest.

2 Jun 2013. ANKARA, Turkey. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

A demonstrator with his blood type written on his arm holds out his fist and shouts slogans during clashes with riot police in central Ankara.

3 Jun 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Stringer

Anti-government protesters standing behind barricades and on top of an excavator clash with riot police as they try to march to Prime Minister Erdogan's office in Istanbul.

2 Jun 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Protesters clash with the police near the prime minister's office.

31 May 2013. ISTANBUL, Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Riot police use water cannons to disperse the crowd during demonstrations at Taksim Square.